Bankruptcy-Induced Salary Cuts for Yubari City Workers to End

Yubari, Hokkaido, June 20 (Jiji Press)–Yubari Mayor Tsukasa Atsuya said Saturday that pay cuts for city government employees, which have been in place ever since the northern Japan city fell into insolvency 20 years ago, will be scrapped at the end of the current fiscal year. Atsuya said that salaries of city employees will return to the originally intended levels from fiscal 2027, which begins next April, as the city in the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido is expected to complete its repayment of special fiscal rehabilitation bonds by the end of fiscal 2026. His statements came at a meeting with internal affairs minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki in Yubari on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the city’s declaration of financial collapse. Hayashi said that he “respects” the city’s decision. Once flourishing from coal mining, Yubari suffered from a string of closures of coal mines due to changes in the country’s energy policy. It incurred a deficit of 35.3 billion yen in fiscal 2006 due to overinvestment in tourism facilities and inappropriate accounting. On June 20 of the same year, the then mayor announced that the city would enter “fiscal reconstruction entity” status, under which it would work to pay off accumulated debts under central government supervision. It was later designated as such an entity, the only one in Japan, following the enactment of a new law. At the beginning of the reconstruction process, the monthly salary of city government employees was reduced by an average of about 30 pct. The size of the pay cuts has been gradually reduced, with such employees now taking a uniform 5 pct cut. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]